Radiohead rocker Jonny Greenwood admits he was a “clumsy” and “lazy” guitar player in the early days of the band.
The 54‑year‑old musician – who was the last member to join the ’90s rock band alongside Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway and his brother Colin Greenwood – says he had to learn to enjoy playing the guitar, and now it’s become his greatest passion.
He told The i Paper: “I will sit and play guitar every day now.
“It’s funny. It’s something I kind of never wanted to do. I used to distrust any sort of fluidity and think that was somehow part of that thing of technical playing. But now I just feel different about it. And it feels lucky that my fingers do these things. I’ve got a certain facility with it, so I’ve decided to accept it, and have realised that I really love playing the guitar.”
He confessed: “In the early days of Radiohead I always felt like a clumsy guitar player and was always lazy but now, just through repetition, I’ve got hooked. I’ve just got addicted and want to play all the time.”
Jonny – whose next gig is Steve Reich at 90: London Sinfonietta and Jonny Greenwood at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday (27.09.26) – is also known for his work in film composition and a growing catalogue of classical projects. But he admits he still feels caught between curiosity and caution when it comes to learning more.
He said: “I don’t feel I’ve learnt enough.
“I’m always sort of torn between wanting to greedily consume all this stuff and understand it. But also knowing that it’s a mistake to just have a kind of jack-of-all-trades approach to it all, because it just means you don’t really get a deep understanding of any of it. I just permanently feel like I’m in a kind of panic between the two things.”
Radiohead’s rise began in the early ’90s after the group signed with EMI. Their debut album, Pablo Honey, arrived in 1993, and introduced the band to a global audience when Creep became an unexpected breakout hit.
Their momentum accelerated with The Bends in 1995, a record that earned widespread acclaim and marked a shift toward the more ambitious sound that would define their later work. That evolution reached a new level with OK Computer in 1997, a release often cited as a landmark in modern music and a turning point for the band’s creative identity.
Jonny and frontman Thom are also members of The Smile with drummer Tom Skinner.